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CLEAN PEACE 

THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH 
LABOUR 

Complete text of the Official War Aims Memorandum 
of the Inter- Allied Labour and Socialist 
Conference, held in London, 
February 23, 1918 ' 



BY 

CHARLES A. McCURDY, M.P, 

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NEW YORK 
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



rice, Ten Cents 



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"We have to endure with courage and patience. We 
have to remember that all the world's great things have 
been produced in the same way — through the toil of noble 
hearts, through burning fears, and through the free sacri- 
fice of our blood for one another. Then, believing that 
that is the way by which comes the redemption of the world, 
through the confusion and the garments steeped in blood 
and the horrors and anguish of war, we shall see 'Christ's 
Kingdom will come at last, the Kingdom of Peace and 
Love/ " 

Dr. R. F. Horton. 



JSJ8 



PREFACE 

The statement of war aims adopted by the Socialist and 
Labour Parties of Great Britain, France, Italy, and Bel- 
gium at the Inter-Allied Conference, held in London on 
February 23, 19 18, is practically the same as that pre- 
viously adopted by the British Labour Party and British 
Trade Unionist Congress on December 28, 19 17. It is 
therefore a statement of British origin. In its original 
form it received the cordial endorsement of American 
Labour, and in its present form it may be said to represent, 
with authority, the views common to organised Labour in 
all the Allied countries. 

The statement contains here and there suggestions which 
will be received with more sympathy in Socialist circles 
than elsewhere, but on the great issues of war and peace 
it reveals a close and welcome agreement between the pur- 
pose and aims of organised Labour and those of the British 
Government and the British people. 

C. A. M. 



A CLEAN PEACE 



"T\IFFERENT people describe our war aims differently. 
*-^ Some can think of nothing but Belgium — with its 
ruined towns and villages, its looted factories from which 
all the machinery has been taken away into Germany, its 
starving people, its young men and women torn from their 
homes to work for their German masters. They say, what- 
ever else happens, Belgium must be restored before we 
can talk of peace ; and they are right. 

Others will tell you that there can be no lasting peace 
for Europe until the peoples of Europe are free from the 
domination of foreign rulers — free to live their own lives, 
speak their own languages, and worship God in their own 
way. In German Poland it is a crime for little children 
to say their prayers in their mother tongue. 

Austria is made up of all sorts of peoples and nation- 
alities — Poles, Hungarians, Czechs, Slavs, Roumanians, 
Italians — many of whom will never be satisfied until they 
obtain political freedom. And everyone knows how the 
forcible annexation of two French provinces — Alsace and 
Lorraine — has been one of the causes which brought about 
the present war. The strength of Germany in this war 
rests on the fact that she can conscript to-day all the subject 
races of Europe — fifty million people — to fight for a cause 
they loathe and for masters whom they hate, against their 
own race and their own kith and kin. I have no doubt 



% A CLEAN PEACE 

that the enfranchisement of the subject peoples of Europe 
is one of the most important of our aims. 

But if I were asked what is the absolutely essential thing 
for which we are righting, I could find no better answer 
than the statement which strikes the keynote of the official 
statement of the War Aims of Allied Labour: 

"Of all the war aims none is so important to the peoples of 
the world as that there should be henceforth on earth no 
more war." 

It is no use setting the peoples of Europe free if they; 
have nothing to hope for, but to pay taxes and work over- 
time, in preparation for another war. It is no use restoring 
Belgium if, when she is restored, she is liable to be again 
invaded. Her fate would be like that of the house of which 
St. Matthew tells — when the evil spirit had gone out, lie 
presently returned, and, finding the house swept and gar- 
nished, took seven other spirits more wicked than himself, 
and the last state of that house was worse than the first. 

Things are much too bad in Europe to-day to be just 
patched up. We must find some end to the war which will 
save Belgium and ourselves, once and for all, from any 
possibility of the same thing happening again. 

A New Fact. 

When this war began most people thought it would be 
over in a few months. Some terms of peace w r ould be 
arranged, Belgium would be compensated, and then 
Europe would just settle down as before. That is the way 
most wars have ended, and nations have been making wars 
and ending wars and beginning wars again, ever since 
history was first written* 

But three years have passed and we have discovered 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR S 

something new about war — something that makes war to- 
day different from any of the great wars of history, some- 
thing that we hope will make war impossible for the gen- 
erations to come after us. This new fact is the unexpected y 
the enormous increase in the cost of war. 

In times of peace, in the years before 19 14, when we 
thought that war could never be got rid of altogether, the 
nations of Europe naturally made preparations every year 
for the possibility of war. They spent money on armies 
and navies as a necessary protection against a war which 
most of them hoped would never come. Every year they 
were spending nearly £400,000,000 on naval and military 
establishments as a sort of insurance against war. 

It was an enormous sum. The peoples of Europe were 
spending more in preparation for war than they spent on 
the health of the people, on sanitation, on education, on 
schools and universities, on insurance for workers, on 
medical dispensaries, old-age pensions, and on every kind 
of scheme for improving the housing, the conditions of 
labour, or the social conditions of the different peoples. 
Every penny of it had to be provided by the labour of the 
peoples of Europe, and it left many nations poor indeed. 
If such a sum had been applied to more useful purposes, 
we might have abolished all slums in Europe, doubled all 
the shipping of the world, built new railways round the 
world, shortened the hours of labour, and raised the stand- 
ard of life and comfort for every worker in Europe in a 
few years' time. 

From a Tin Soldier to a Tank. 

It was all spent in preparing for war. And the 
astonishing thing is that when war came in 19 14 it found 
all of us unprepared. We know how, in Great Britain, we 



4 A CLEAN PEACE 

had to multiply armies and armaments tenfold and twenty- 
fold when war actually came. The £400,000,000 a year 
which Europe was spending was not enough, not half 
enough, not anything like enough, for the purpose for 
which it was spent. If, when this war is over, we have to 
reckon with the possibility of another war, Europe must 
spend, not a paltry £400,000,000 a year in preparation, but 
a sum that would be nearer £4,000,000,000. 

War has grown in stature from a child to a giant, from 
a tin soldier to a tank. We cannot afford to keep him any 
longer. We have got to fight this war through until we 
get complete security against any future wars. Unless we 
do that we can look forward to working overtime all our 
lives to pay the cost of this war and the next. It is best 
to look the facts in the face, size up the job, and make up 
our minds to go on quietly until we are through with it. 

At present the German military rulers who planned this 
war, who have made war their trade and the conquest of 
their neighbours their state policy for half a century, are 
still firmly in power. They are not willing to talk of any 
peace that would disarm them, that would destroy the great 
military forces on which the German Empire has been built 
up, on which the House of Hohenzollern rests. 

But until they are disarmed their neighbours cannot dis- 
arm, and an armed peace would mean bankruptcy for half 
the nations of Europe in a few years' time. 

Autocracies Must Go. 

The War Aims Memorandum of Allied Labour goes 
boldly to the root of the evil. It relies, as the means neces- 
sary to prevent war, upon the formation of a League of 
Nations, based on 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 5 

"The complete democratisation of all countries, the removal 
of all the arbitrary Powers who, until now, have assumed 
the right of choosing between peace and war; the mainte- 
nance or creation of legislatures elected by and on behalf of 
the sovereign right of the people, the suppression of secret 
diplomacy to be replaced by the conduct of foreign policy 
under the control of popular legislatures." 

These words have only one meaning. Autocracies must 
go; Hohenzollerns and Hapsburgs, with their sultans and 
satraps, must be removed, or no longer be entrusted with 
the keys of life and death, the power to send to the slaughter 
millions of the human race. 

Never again must it be in the power of one man to speak 
a word that will condemn an innocent people to death or 
plunge a world into war. 

Any peace by agreement which left the Hohenzollerns 
dictators of Central Europe would be a humbug and a 
sham. Hohenzollernism must go ! 

Disarmament. 

And not only must the coming peace free all nations, 
the Germans as well as ourselves, from the dangers of a 
despotic system of government, it must give us visible and 
tangible proofs of security for the future. Europe must 
be drastically disarmed. 

Disarmament is the test and touchstone of an honest 
peace. 

When anyone proposes terms of peace, the simple way 
of seeing whether the terms are worth considering is to 
ask these questions: "Would the peace proposed enable 
us to disarm? Would it disarm Germany ?" 

No other kind of peace is worth talking about. We 
want peace for our children as well as for ourselves, and 



A CLEAN PEACE 



pe 



no peace would be any good to them that left Europe 
full of armies and arsenals heaped with stores of high ex- 
plosives, one huge powder magazine. Sooner or later 
some idiot would strike a match, and the whole business 
of war would start all over again. 

The Inter-Allied statement goes with clear common 
sense straight to the heart of the matter. There must be 
no more of these gigantic armies and armaments. So 
long as the great machines of war are kept always ready 
for use by any people or ruler on any sudden impulse or 
provocation, there can never be a safe and secure peace. 
The system of conscription which places huge armies 
always at the disposal of warlike rulers and peoples must go. 

"The League of Nations, in order to prepare for the con- 
certed abolition of compulsory military service in all coun- 
tries, must first take steps for the prohibition of fresh arma- 
ments on land and sea, and for the common limitation of the 
existing armaments by which all the peoples are burdened." 

The essential war aim of the peoples in all countries is 
the same — not conquest or glory, but security — and with- 
out a drastic disarmament of Europe, no real security is 
possible. 

Justice. 

And Allied Labour recognises clearly that something more 
than disarmament is necessary for Europe if we are to 
have a clean Peace that will not leave the embers of war 
still smouldering. 

The Coming Peace must also be based on a policy of 
justice. 

We cannot build a new and better Europe on a rotten 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 7 

foundation of ancient wrongs. There are crimes that must 
be atoned for, oppressed races that must be freed, home- 
less and ruined peoples that must be saved and restored. 
The Inter-Allied Conference has in its memorandum dealt 
at great length with many of the problems that will arise — 
economic problems, colonial questions, schemes for re- 
instating industry and for reconstruction after the war. 
It would, of course, be impossible for us all to be agreed 
on all points, when we come to consider these large and 
difficult problems. There is room for differences of opin- 
ion. But the Conference has laid down certain main prin- 
ciples with which no one will quarrel. 

The Allied Socialists are not hypnotised by the Brest- 
Litovsk formula of "Peace without annexations or indemni- 
ties." They frankly disclaim any war of conquest, whether 
what is sought to be acquired by force is territory or wealth. 
But they recognise that without some annexations and 
without some indemnities, there can be no just and lasting 
peace. 

There must be annexations, if they are necessary to set 
free a tortured and oppressed people, as in the case of 
Armenia. 

"Whatever may be proposed with regard to Armenia, Meso- 
potamia, and Arabia, they cannot be restored to the tyranny 
of the Sultan and his Pashas." 

There must be indemnities, and heavy indemnities, where 
a whole people have been robbed, looted, and pillaged, 
ruined, and made homeless. 

"The Conference emphatically insists that a foremost con- 
dition of peace must be the reparation by the German Gov- 
ernment, under the direction of an International Commis- 
sion, of the wrong admittedly done to Belgium, and pay- 



8 A CLEAN PEACE 

ment by the Government for all the damage that has re- 
sulted from this wrong." 

And Armenia and Belgium are not the only countries that 
have to be considered. 

"The Conference declares its warmest sympathy with the 
people of Italian blood and speech who have been left out- 
side the boundaries .... assigned to the Kingdom of 
Italy, and supports their claim to be united with those of 
their own race and tongue." 

The Conference suggests that the peace of the world 
requires that the Dardanelles should be permanently and 
effectively neutralised and opened under the control of a 
League of Nations freely to all nations. It is not forget- 
ful of the just claims of Poland or of Alsace and Lorraine. 

The war aims of Allied Labour do not stop at a mere 
negative statement or phrase. "Peace without annexa- 
tions or punitive indemnities" is not enough. 

A peace, on that basis alone, would leave Armenia in 
the hands of its butchers, leave the autocracies of Central 
Europe in unfettered control of armies and armaments, and 
leave the rest of Europe without a shadow of security 
against future wars. 

A Grand Assize. 

Allied Labour demands a peace wholly different from 
that. No settlement can be lasting that does not give men 
and women security for life and honour, and a decent peace 
must recognise some difference between right and wrong. 
An important item of the memorandum puts forward the 
demands of the Conference for the recognition of the claims 
of Justice as an essential term of peace. It calls for a Grand 






THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 9 

Assize to investigate "accusations so freely made on all 
sides" : 



"The Conference will not be satisfied unless a full and free 
judicial investigation is made into . . . acts of cruelty, 
oppression, violence, and theft against individual victims for 
which no justification can be found in the ordinary usages 
of war. It draws attention particularly to the loss of life 
and property of merchant seamen and other non-combat- 
ants, including women and children, resulting from this 
inhuman and ruthless conduct. It should be part of the 
conditions of peace that there should be forthwith set up a 
Court of Claims and Accusations, which should investigate 
all such allegations as may be brought before it, summon 
the accused person or Government to answer the complaint, 
pronounce judgment and award compensation or damages, 
payable by the individual or Government condemned, to the 
persons who had suffered wrong or to their dependants/' 

There must not only be compensation for property de- 
stroyed. The wage-earners and peasants must be restored 
to their lost homes and their lost employment. 

A Clean Peace. 

If the German rulers imagined that they could humbug 
the British as they humbugged the Bolsheviks, if they 
thought that their success in deceiving the inexperienced 
democracy of Russia by peace phrases and formulas could 
be repeated by any pacifist propaganda among the workers 
of Great Britain or Western Europe, the manifesto of the 
Inter-Allied Conference of London must be a disappoint- 
ment to them. The memorandum of war aims issued by 
the Conference speaks the language neither of Pacifism 
nor of Bolshevism, but of resolute common sense. It is 
in striking agreement with the authoritative statement of 



10 A CLEAN PEACE 

the Prime Minister of British war aims made on January 

5. 1917. 

It echoes the declaration of war aims made by Presi- 
dent Wilson on January 11. It reveals the essential unity 
of purpose that now animates the Governments and the peo- 
ples of Western Europe. 

We desire neither to destroy Germany nor to diminish 
her boundaries, nor to cripple her trade. We seek neither 
territory nor any spoils of war. 

We aim at nothing which we cannot state openly before 
all men. 

All the war aims of all our peoples can be summed up in 
two words: We are righting for a Clean Peace. 



In a few years the story of the Great War will be as a 
tale that is told. Over the shell-scarred fields of battle 
will again be growing corn and fresh flowers. The ruined 
villages of Belgium will have been re-built. The dead, 
dismembered orchards of France will bloom again. 

Another generation than ours will read of the rape of 
Belgium, of the first tide of invasion that carried the Ger- 
mans to the very gates of Paris, and of the saving miracle 
of the Marne. 

But they will never realise, as we have realised, the 
agony it meant for the bewildered peoples on whom the 
storm first broke. 

Please God, they will never know all the intolerable 
cruelties that we have known, or be called on to bear the 
sacrifices that we have made. 

And there will come a time when all the sufferings and 
the pain will be forgotten as though they had never been. 

But the Peace that we shall presently make will not so 
soon be forgotten. It will shape the destinies of our race, 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 11 

fashion the daily lives of our peoples, as a living, potent 
force for centuries to come. 

Upon the terms of that Peace hangs the future of Europe 
and the world. 

To prolong the war for one unnecessary hour would be 
treason to those who to-day are fighting and dying that 
Europe may be free; but to accept an unreal Peace, an 
armed Peace, a Peace that would leave wrongs unremedied, 
old sores unhealed; that would leave Prussian militarism 
neither defeated nor disarmed, would be a still greater 
treason to our children. 

"A victory for German Imperialism would be the defeat and 
the destruction of democracy and liberty in Europe." 

WAR AIMS MEMORANDUM. 

ADOPTED BY THE INTER-ALLIED LABOUR AND SOCIALIST 
CONFERENCE, HELD IN LONDON, AT THE CENTRAL HALL, 
WESTMINSTER, ON FEBRUARY 23, I918. 
THE WAR. 

I. — The Inter-Allied Conference declares that whatever 
may have been the causes of the outbreak of war, it is clear 
that the peoples of Europe, who are necessarily the chief suf- 
ferers from its horrors, had themselves no hand in it. Their 
common interest is now so to conduct the terrible struggle in 
which they find themselves engaged as to bring it, as soon as 
may be possible, to an issue in a secure and lasting peace for 
the world. 

The Conference sees no reason to depart from the following 
declaration unanimously agreed to at the Conference of the 
Socialist and Labour Parties of the Allied nations on February 
14,1915:— 

"This Conference cannot ignore the profound general causes 
of the European conflict, itself a monstrous product of the 
antagonisms which tear asunder capitalist society and of the 
policy of Colonial dependencies and aggressive Imperialism, 
against which International Socialism has never ceased to fight, 



12 A CLEAN PEACE 

and in which every Government has its share of responsibility. 

"The invasion of Belgium and France by the German armies 
threatens the very existence of independent nationalities, and 
strikes a blow at all faith in treaties. In these circumstances a 
victory for German Imperialism would be the defeat and the 
destruction of democracy and liberty in Europe. The Social- 
ists of Great Britain, Belgium, France, and Russia do not pur- 
sue the political and economic crushing of Germany; they are 
not at war with the peoples of Germany and Austria, but only 
with the Governments of those countries by which they are 
oppressed. They demand that Belgium shall be liberated and 
compensated. They desire that the question of Poland shall 
be settled in accordance with the wishes of the Polish people, 
either in the sense of autonomy in the midst of another State, 
or in that of complete independence. They wish that through- 
out all Europe, from Alsace-Lorraine to the Balkans, those 
populations that have been annexed by force shall receive the 
right freely to dispose of themselves. 

"While inflexibly resolved to fight until victory is achieved 
to accomplish this task of liberation, the Socialists are none 
the less resolved to resist any attempt to transform this defen- 
sive war into a war of conquest, which would only prepare 
fresh conflicts, create new grievances, and subject various peo- 
ples more than ever to the double plague of armaments and 
war. 

"Satisfied that they are remaining true to the principles of 
the International, the members of the Conference express the 
hope that the working classes of all the different countries will 
before long find themselves united again in their struggle 
against militarism and capitalist Imperialism. The victory of 
the Allied Powers must be a victory for popular liberty, for 
unity, independence, and autonomy of the nations in the peace- 
ful federation of the United States of Europe and the world.'' 

MAKING THE WORLD SAFE FOR DEMOCRACY. 

II. — Whatever may have been the objects for which the 
war was begun, the fundamental purpose of the Inter-Allied 
Conference in supporting the continuance of the struggle is 
that the world may henceforth be made safe for democracy. 

Of all the conditions of peace none is so important to the 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR IS 

peoples of the world as that there should be henceforth on 
earth no more war. 

Whoever triumphs, the peoples will have lost unless an inter- 
national system is established which will prevent war. What 
would it mean to declare the right of peoples to self-deter- 
mination if this right were left at the mercy of new violations, 
and were not protected by a super-national authority? That 
authority can be no other than the League of Nations, in which 
not only all the present belligerents, but every other inde- 
pendent State, should be pressed to join. 

The constitution of such a League of Nations implies the 
immediate establishment of an International High Court, not 
only for the settlement of all disputes between States that are 
of justiciable nature, but also for prompt and effective media- 
tion between States in other issues that vitally interest the 
power or honour of such States. It is also under the control 
of the League of Nations that the consultation of peoples for 
purposes of self-determination must be organised. This pop- 
ular right can be vindicated only by popular vote. The League 
of Nations shall establish the procedure of international juris- 
diction, fix the methods which will maintain the freedom and 
security of the election, restore the political rights of indi- 
viduals which violence and conquest may have injured, repress 
any attempt to use pressure or corruption, and prevent any 
subsequent reprisals. It will be also necessary to form an 
International Legislature, in which the representatives of 
every civilised State would have their allotted share, and ener- 
getically to push forward, step by step, the development of 
international legislation agreed to by, and definitely binding 
upon, the several States. 

By a solemn agreement all the States and peoples consulted 
shall pledge themselves to submit every issue between two or 
more of them for settlement as aforesaid. Refusal to accept 
arbitration or to submit to the settlement will imply deliberate 
aggression, and all the nations will necessarily have to make 
common cause, by using any and every means at their dis- 
posal, either economical or military, against any State or States 
refusing to submit to the arbitration award, or attempting to 
break the world's covenant of peace. 

But the sincere acceptance of the rules and decisions of the 



14 A CLEAN PEACE 

super-national authority implies the complete democratisation 
of all countries ; the removal of all the arbitrary powers who, 
until now, have assumed the right of choosing between peace 
and war; the maintenance or creation of legislatures elected 
by and on behalf of the sovereign right of the people; the 
suppression of secret diplomacy, to be replaced by the conduct 
of foreign policy under the control of popular legislatures, and 
the publication of all treaties, which must never be in contra- 
vention of the stipulation of the League of Nations, with the 
absolute responsibility of the Government, and more partic- 
ularly of the Foreign Minister of each country to its Legis- 
lature. 

Only such a policy will enforce the frank abandonment of 
every form of Imperialism. When based on universal democ- 
racy, in a world in which effective international guarantees 
against aggression have been secured, the League of Nations 
will achieve the complete suppression of force as the means of 
settling international differences. 

The League of Nations, in order to prepare for the con- 
certed abolition of compulsory military service in all countries, 
must first take steps for the prohibition of fresh armaments 
on land and sea, and for the common limitation of the existing 
armaments by which all the peoples are burdened; as well as 
the control of war manufactures and the enforcement of such 
agreements as may be agreed to thereupon. The States must 
undertake such manufactures themselves, so as entirely to 
abolish profit-making armament firms, whose pecuniary inter- 
est lies always in the war scares and progressive competition 
in the preparation for war. 

The nations, being armed solely for self-defence and for 
such action as the League of Nations may ask them to take in 
defence of international right, will be left free, under inter- 
national control either to create a voluntarily recruited force 
or to organise the nation for defence without professional 
armies for long terms of military service. 

To give effect to the above principles, the Inter-Allied Con- 
ference declares that the rules upon which the League of 
Nations will be founded must be included in the Treaty of 
Peace, and will henceforward become the basis of the settle- 
ment of differences. In that spirit the Conference expresses 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 15 

its agreement with the propositions put forward by President 
Wilson in his last message : — 

(i) That each part of the final settlement must be based 
upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon 
such adjustments as are most likely to bring a peace that will 
be permanent. 

(2) That peoples and provinces are not to be bartered 
about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were mere 
chattels or pawns in a game, even the great game now for ever 
discredited of the balance of power ; but that 

(3) Every territorial settlement involved in this war must 
be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations 
concerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or com- 
promise of claims amongst rival States. 

(4) That all well-defined national aspirations shall be ac- 
corded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them 
without introducing new or perpetuating old elements of dis- 
cord and antagonism that would be likely in time to break the 
peace of Europe, and consequently of the world. 

TERRITORIAL QUESTIONS. 

III. — The Inter-Allied Conference considers that the proc- 
lamation of principles of international law accepted by all 
nations, and the substitution of a regular procedure for the 
forceful acts by which States calling themselves sovereign 
have hitherto adjusted their differences — in short, the estab- 
lishment of a League of Nations — give an entirely new aspect 
to territorial problems. 

The old diplomacy and the yearnings after domination by 
States, or even by peoples, which during the whole of the 19th 
century have taken advantage of and corrupted the aspirations 
of nationalities, have brought Europe to a condition of an- 
archy and disorder which have led inevitably to the present 
catastrophe. 

The Conference declares it to be the duty of the Labour and 
Socialist Movement to suppress without hesitation the Im- 
perialist designs in the various States which have led one Gov- 
ernment after another to seek, by the triumph of military 
force, to acquire either new territories or economic advantage. 

The establishment of a system of international law, and the 



16 A CLEAN PEACE 

guarantees afforded by a League of Nations, ought to remove 
the last excuse for those strategic protections which nations 
have hitherto felt bound to require. 

It is the supreme principle of the right of each people to 
determine its own destiny that must now decide what steps 
should be taken by way of restitution or reparation, and what- 
ever territorial readjustments may be found to be necessary at 
the close of the present war. 

The Conference accordingly emphasises the importance to 
the Labour and Socialist Movement of a clear and exact defi- 
nition of what is meant by the right of each people to deter- 
mine its own destiny. Neither destiny of race nor identity of 
language can be regarded as affording more than a presump- 
tion in favour of federation or unification. During the 19th 
century theories of this kind have so often served as a cloak 
for aggression that the International cannot but seek to pre- 
vent any recurrence of such an evil. Any adjustments of 
boundaries that become necessary must be based exclusively 
upon the desire of the people concerned. 

It is true that it is impossible for the necessary consultation 
of the desires of the people concerned to be made in any fixed 
and invariable way for all the cases in which it is required, and 
that the problems of nationality and territory are not the same 
for the inhabitants of all countries. Nevertheless, what is 
necessary in all cases is that the procedure to be adopted 
should be decided, not by one of the parties to the dispute, but 
by the super-national authority. 

Upon the basis of the general principles herein formulated, 
the Conference proposes the following solutions of particular 
problems : — 

'(a) Belgium. 

The Conference emphatically insists that a foremost con- 
dition of peace must be the reparation by the German Govern- 
ment, under the direction of an International Commission, of 
the wrong admittedly done to Belgium ; payment by that Gov- 
ernment for all the damage that has resulted from this wrong ; 
and the restoration of Belgium as an independent sovereign 
State, leaving to the decision of the Belgian people the deter- 
mination of their own future policy in all respects. 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR IT 



(b) Alsace and Lorraine. 

The Conference declares that the problem of Alsace and 
Lorraine is not one of territorial adjustment, but one of right, 
and thus an international problem the solution of which is 
indispensable if peace is to be either just or lasting. 

The Treaty of Frankfort at one and the same time mutilated 
France and violated the right of the inhabitants of Alsace and 
Lorraine to dispose of their own destinies, a right which they 
have repeatedly claimed. 

The new Treaty of Peace, in recognising that Germany, by 
her declaration of war of 1914, has herself broken the Treaty 
of Frankfort, will make null and void the gains of a brutal 
conquest and of the violence committed against the people. 

France, having secured this recognition, can properly agree 
to a fresh consultation of the population of Alsace and Lor- 
raine as to its own desires. 

The Treaty of Peace will bear the signatures of every nation 
in the world. It will be guaranteed by the League of Nations. 
To this League of Nations France is prepared to remit, with 
the freedom and sincerity of a popular vote of which the 
details can be subsequently settled, the organisation of such a 
consultation as shall settle for ever, as a matter of right, the 
future destiny of Alsace and Lorraine, and as shall finally 
remove from the common life of all Europe a quarrel which 
has imposed so heavy a burden upon it. 

(c) The Balkans. 

The Conference lays down the principle that all the viola- 
tions and perversions of the rights of the people which have 
taken place, or are still taking place, in the Balkans must be 
made the subject of redress or reparation. 

Serbia, Montenegro, Rumania, Albania, and all the terri- 
tories occupied by military force should be evacuated by the 
hostile forces. Wherever any population of the same race and 
tongue demands to be united this must be done. Each such 
people must be accorded full liberty to settle its own destiny, 
without regard to the Imperialist pretensions of Austria, Hun- 
gary, Turkey, or other State. 



18 A CLEAN PEACE 

Accepting this principle, the Conference pre poses that the 
whole problem of the administrative re-organisation of the 
Balkan peoples should be dealt with by a special conference 
of their representatives, or in case of disagreement by an 
authoritative international commission on the basis of (a) the 
concession within each independent sovereignty of local auton- 
omy and security for the development of its particular civilisa- 
tion of every racial minority; (b) the universal guarantee of 
freedom of religion and political equality for all races; (c) a 
Customs and Postal Union embracing the whole of the Balkan 
States, with free access for each to its natural seaport; (d) 
the entry of all the Balkan States into a Federation for the 
concerted arrangement by mutual agreement among themselves 
of all matters of common interest. 

\d) Italy. 

The Conference declares its warmest sympathy with the 
people of Italian blood and speech who have been left outside 
the boundaries that have, as a result of the diplomatic agree- 
ments of the past, and for strategic reasons, been assigned to 
the Kingdom of Italy, and supports their claim to be united 
with those of their own race and tongue. It realises that 
arrangements may be necessary for securing the legitimate 
interests of the people of Italy in the adjacent seas, but it 
condemns the aims of conquest of Italian Imperialism, and 
believes that all legitimate needs can be safeguarded, without 
precluding a like recognition of the needs of others or annexa- 
tion of other people's territories. 

Regarding the Italian population dispersed on the Eastern 
shores of the Adriatic, the relations between Italy and the 
Yugo-Slav populations must be based on principles of equity 
and conciliation, so as to prevent any cause of future quarrel. 

If there are found to be groups of Slavonian race within the 
newly-defined Kingdom of Italy, or groups of Italian race in 
Slavonian territory, mutual guarantees must be given for the 
assurance to all of them, on one side or the other, of full lib- 
erty of local self-government and of the natural development 
of their several activities. 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 19 

(e) Poland and the Baltic Provinces. 

In accordance with the right of every people to determine 
its own destinies, Poland must be re-constituted in unity and 
independence with free access to the sea. 

The Conference declares further that any annexation by 
Germany, whether open or disguised, of Livonia, Courland, or 
Lithuania, would be a flagrant and wholly inadmissible viola- 
tion of international law. 

r (/) The Jews and Palestine. 

The Conference demands for the Jews in all countries the 
same elementary rights of freedom of religion, education, 
residence, and trade and equal citizenship; that ought to be 
extended to all the inhabitants of every nation. It further 
expresses the opinion that Palestine should be set free from 
the harsh and oppressive government of the Turk, in order 
that this country may form a Free State, under interna 'ional 
guarantee, to which such of the Jewish people as desire to do 
so may return and work out thek own salvation free from 
interference by those of alien rac€ <Tr religion. 

(g) The Problem of the Turkish Empire. 

The Conference condemns the Handing back to the system- 
atically cruel domination of the Turkish Government any sub- 
ject people. Thus, whatever may be proposed with regard to 
Armenia, Mesopotamia, and Arabia, they cannot be restored 
to the tyranny of the Sultan and his Pashas. The Conference 
condemns the imperialist aims of Governments and capitalists 
who would make of these and other territories now dominated 
by the Turkish hordes merely instruments either of exploita- 
tion or militarism. If the peoples of these territories do not 
feel themselves able to settle their own destinies, the Confer- 
ence insists that, conformably with the policy of "no annexa- 
tions," they should be placed for administration in the hands 
of a Commission acting under the Super-National Authority 
or League of Nations. It is further suggested that the peace 
of the world requires that the Dardanelles should be perma- 
nently and effectively neutralised and opened like all the main 
lines of marine communication, under the control of the 



20 A CLEAN PEACE 

League of Nations, freely to all nations, without hindrance or 
Customs duties. 

(h) Austria-Hungary. 

The Conference does not propose as a war aim dismember- 
ment of Austria- Hungary or its deprivation of economic access 
to the sea. On the other hand, the Conference cannot admit 
that the claims to independence made by the Czecho-Slovaks 
and the Yugo-Slavs must be regarded merely as questions for 
internal decision. National independence ought to be ac- 
corded, according to rules to be laid down by the League of 
Nations, to such peoples as demand it, and these communities 
ought to have the opportunity of determining their own group- 
ings and federations according to their affinities and interests. 
If they think fit they are free to substitute a free federation 
of Danubian States for the Austro-Hungarian Empire. 

(i) The Colonies and Dependencies. 

The International has always condemned the Colonial policy 
of capitalist Governments. Without ceasing to condemn it, 
the Inter-Allied Conference nevertheless recognises the exist- 
ence of a state of things which it is obliged to take into 
account. 

The Conference considers that the treaty of peace ought to 
secure to the natives in all colonies and dependencies effective 
protection against the excesses of capitalist colonialism. The 
Conference demands the concession of administrative auton- 
omy for all groups of people that attain a certain degree of 
civilisation, and for all the others a progressive participation 
in local government. 

The Conference is of opinion that the return of the colonies 
to those who possessed them before the war, or the exchanges 
or compensations which might be effected, ought not to be an 
obstacle to the making of peace. 

Those colonies that have been taken by conquest from any 
belligerent must be made the subject of special consideration 
at the Peace Conference, as to which the communities in their 
neighbourhood will be entitled to take part. But the clause 
in the treaty of peace on this point must secure economic 
equality in such territories for the peoples of all nations, and 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 21 

thereby guarantee that none are shut out from legitimate 
access to raw materials; prevented from disposing of their 
own products, or deprived of their proper share of economic 
development. 

As regards more especially the colonies of all the belligerents 
in Tropical Africa, from sea to sea, including the whole of the 
region north of the Zambesi and south of the Sahara, the Con- 
ference condemns any imperialist idea which would make these 
countries the booty of one or several nations, exploit them for 
the profit of the capitalist, or use them for the promotion of 
the militarist aims of the Governments. 

With respect to these colonies, the Conference declares in 
favour of a system of control, established by international 
agreement under the League of Nations and maintained by 
its guarantee, which, whilst respecting national sovereignty, 
would be alike inspired by broad conceptions of economic 
freedom and concerned to safeguard the rights of the natives 
under the best conditions possible for them, and in particu- 
lar:— 

(i) It would take account in each locality of the wishes of 
the people, expressed in the form which is possible to them. 

(2) The interests of the native tribes as regards the owner- 
ship of the soil would be maintained. 

(3) The whole of the revenues would be devoted to the 
well-being and development of the colonies themselves. 

ECONOMIC RELATIONS. 

IV. — The Inter-Allied Conference declares against all the 
projects now being prepared by Imperialists and capitalists, 
not in any one country only, but in most countries, for an 
economic war, after peace has been secured, either against 
one or other foreign nation or against all foreign nations; as 
such an economic war, if begun by any country, would in- 
evitably lead to reprisals, to which each nation in turn might 
in self-defence be driven. The main lines of marine com- 
munication should be open without hindrance to vessels of all 
nations under the protection of the League of Nations. The 
Conference realises that all attempts at economic aggression, 
whether by protective tariffs, capitalist trusts or monopolies, 
inevitably result in the spoliation of the working classes of the 



22 A CLEAN PEACE 

several countries for the profit of the capitalists ; and the work- 
ing class see in the alliance between the Military Imperialists 
and the Ffscal Protectionists in any country whatsoever not 
only a serious danger to the prosperity of the masses of the 
people, but also a grave menace to peace. On the other hand, 
the right of each nation to the defence of its own economic 
interests, and, in face of the world-shortage hereinafter men- 
tioned, to the conservation for its own people of a sufficiency 
of its own supplies of foodstuffs and raw materials, cannot be 
denied. The Conference accordingly urges upon the Labour 
and Socialist Parties of all countries the importance of insist- 
ing, in the attitude of the Government towards commercial 
enterprise along with the necessary control of supplies for its 
own people, on the principle of the open door, and without 
hostile discrimination against foreign countries. But it urges 
equally the importance, not merely of conservation, but also 
of the utmost possible development, by appropriate Govern- 
ment action, of the resources of every country for the benefit 
not only of its own people, but also of the world, and the need 
for an international agreement for the enforcement in all coun- 
tries of the legislation on factory conditions, a maximum eight- 
hour day, the prevention of "sweating" and unhealthy trades 
necessary to protect the workers against exploitation and op- 
pression, and the prohibition of night work by women and 
children. 

THE PROBLEMS OF PEACE. 

V. — To make the world safe for democracy involves much 
more than the prevention of war, either military or economic. 
It will be a device of the capitalist interests to pretend that the 
Treaty of Peace need concern itself only with the cessation of 
the struggles of the armed forces and with any necessary ter- 
ritorial readjustments. The Inter-Allied Conference insists 
that, in view of the probable world-wide shortage, after the 
war, of exportable foodstuffs and raw materials and of mer- 
chant shipping, it is imperative, in order to prevent the most 
serious hardships and even possible famine, in one country or 
another, that systematic arrangements should be made on an 
international basis for the allocation and conveyance of the 
available exportable surpluses of these commodities to the dif- 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 23 

ferent countries, in proportion, not to their purchasing powers, 
but to their several pressing needs ; and that, within each coun- 
try, the Government must for some time maintain its control 
of the most indispensable commodities, in order to secure their 
appropriation, not in a competitive market mainly to the richer 
classes in proportion to their means, but, systematically, to 
meet the most urgent needs of the whole community on the 
principle of "no cake for anyone until all have bread." 

Moreover, it cannot but be anticipated that, in all countries, 
the dislocation of industry attendant on peace, the instant dis- 
charge of millions of munition makers and workers in war 
trades, the demobilisation of millions of soldiers, the scarcity 
of industrial capital, the shortage of raw materials, and the 
insecurity of commercial enterprise — these will, unless prompt 
and energetic action be taken by the several Governments, 
plunge a large part of the wage-earning population into all the 
miseries of unemployment more or less prolonged. In view of 
the fact that widespread unemployment in any country, like a 
famine, is an injury not to that country alone, but impoverishes 
also the rest of the world, the Conference holds that it is the 
duty of every Government to take immediate action, not merely 
to relieve the unemployed, when unemployment has set in, but 
actually, so far as may be practicable, to prevent the occur- 
rence of unemployment. It therefore urges upon the Labour 
Parties of every country the necessity of their pressing upon 
their Governments the preparation of plans for the execution 
of all the innumerable public works (such as the making and 
repairing of roads, railways, and waterways, the erection of 
schools and public buildings, the provision of working-class 
dwellings, and the reclamation and afforestation of land) that 
will be required in the near future, not for the sake of finding 
measures of relief for the unemployed, but with a view to 
these works being undertaken at such a rate in each locality as 
will suffice, together with the various capitalist enterprises that 
may be in progress, to maintain at a fairly uniform level year 
by year, and throughout each year, the aggregate demand for 
labour; and thus prevent there being any unemployed. It is 
now known that in this way it is quite possible for any Govern- 
ment to prevent, if it chooses, the occurrence of any wide- 
spread or prolonged involuntary unemployment; which, if it 



24 A CLEAN PEACE 

is now in any country allowed to occur, is as much the result 
of Government neglect as is any epidemic disease. 

RESTORATION OF THE DEVASTATED AREAS AND 
REPARATION OF WRONGDOING. 

VI. — The Inter- Allied Conference holds that one of the 
most imperative duties of all countries immediately peace is 
declared will be the restoration, so far as may be possible, of 
the homes, farms, factories, public buildings, and means of 
communication wherever destroyed by war operations; that 
the restoration should not be limited to compensation for pub- 
lic buildings, capitalist undertakings, and material property 
proved to be destroyed or damaged, but should be extended 
to setting up the wage-earners and peasants themselves in 
homes and employment ; and that to ensure the full and impar- 
tial application of these principles the assessment and distribu- 
tion of the compensation, so far as the cost is contributed by 
any International fund, should be made under the direction of 
an International Commission. 

The Conference will not be satisfied unless there is a full 
and free judicial investigation into the accusations made on 
all sides that particular Governments have ordered, and par- 
ticular officers have exercised, acts of cruelty, oppression, vio- 
lence, and theft against individual victims, for which no justi- 
fication can be found in the ordinary usages of war. It draws 
attention, in particular, to the loss of life and property of 
merchant seamen and other non-combatants (including women 
and children) resulting from this inhuman and ruthless con- 
duct. It should be part of the conditions of peace that there 
should be forthwith set up a Court of Claims and Accusations, 
which should investigate all such allegations as may be brought 
before it, summon the accused person or Government to answer 
the complaint, pronounce judgment and award compensation 
or damages, payable by the individual or Government con- 
demned to the persons who had suffered wrong, or to their 
dependants. The several Governments must be responsible, 
financially and otherwise, for the presentation of the cases of 
their respective nationals to such a Court of Claims and Accu- 
sations, and for the payment of the compensation awarded. 



THE WAR AIMS OF BRITISH LABOUR 25 



INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE. 

VII. — The Inter-Allied Conference is of opinion that an In- 
ternational Conference of Labour and Socialist organisations, 
held under proper conditions, would at this stage render use- 
ful service to world democracy by assisting to remove mis- 
understandings, as well as tne obstacles which stand in the 
way of world peace. 

Awaiting the resumption of the normal activities of the 
International Socialist Bureau, we consider that an Interna- 
tional Conference, held during the period of hostilities, should 
be organised by a committee whose impartiality cannot be 
questioned. It should be held in a neutral country, under such 
conditions as would inspire confidence; and the Conference 
should be fully representative of all the Labour and Socialist 
movement in all the belligerent countries accepting the condi- 
tions under which the Conference is convoked. 

As an essential condition to an International Conference, the 
Commission is of opinion that the organisers of the Conference 
should satisfy themselves that all the organisations to be repre- 
sented put in precise form, by a public declaration, their peace 
terms in conformity with the principles "No annexations or 
punitive indemnities, and the right of all peoples to self-deter- 
mination," and that they are working with all their power to 
obtain from their Governments the necessary guarantees to 
apply these principles honestly and unreservedly to all ques- 
tions to be dealt with at any official peace conference. 

In view of the vital differences between the Allied countries 
and the Central Powers, the Commission is of opinion that it 
is highly advisable that the Conference should be used to 
provide an opportunity for the delegates from the respective 
countries now in a state of war to make a full and frank state- 
ment of their present position and future intentions, and to 
endeavour by mutual agreement to arrange a programme of 
action for a speedy and democratic peace. 

The Conference is of opinion that the working classes, hav- 
ing made such sacrifices during the war, are entitled to take 
part in securing a democratic world peace, and that M. Albert 
Thomas (France), M. Emile Vandervelde (Belgium), and 
Mr. Arthur Henderson (Great Britain) be appointed as a 



26 A CLEAN PEACE 

Commission to secure from all the Governments a promise that 
at least one representative of Labour and Socialism will be 
included in the official representation at any Government Con- 
ference, and to organise a Labour and Socialist representation 
to sit concurrently with the official Conference; further, that 
no country be entitled to more than four representatives at 
such conference. 

The Conference regrets the absence of representatives of 
American Labour and Socialism from the Inter-Allied Con- 
ference, and urges the importance of securing their approval 
of the decisions reached. With this object in view, the Con- 
ference agrees that a deputation, consisting of one representa- 
tive from France, Belgium, Italy, and Great Britain, together 
with Camille Huysmans (secretary of the International So- 
cialist Bureau), proceed to the United States at once, in order 
to confer with representatives of the American democracy on 
the whole situation of the war. 

The Conference resolves to transmit to the Socialists of the 
Central Empires and of the nations allied with them the mem- 
orandum in which the Conference has defined the conditions 
of peace, conformably with the principles of Socialist and 
international justice. The Conference is convinced that these 
conditions will commend themselves on reflection to the mind 
of every Socialist, and the Conference asks for the answer of 
the Socialists of the Central Empires, in the hope that these 
will join without delay in a joint effort of the International, 
which has now become more than ever the best and most 
certain instrument of democracy and peace. 



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